Wish I had taken a snap of the Morappur station when Vikas and I alighted from the train. 3:40 in the morning when the train stopped for 5 minutes there and we got off along with 3-4 other lost souls, the small station was deserted save for small bunch of people waiting for some other train. Well, as expected, no auto, rickshaw or taxi in sight outside the station, thankfully there are a few streetlights working, and we headed in the general direction that the rest of the (ahem) ‘crowd’ of 4 was going. 500 meters on and we did get to a bus, seemed to be waiting for the Chennai train only, as it started off right when we boarded. A nice 25 minute ride and we’re at Dharamapuri bus stand, breakfast of 2 buns and tea, and onto the next bus ‘Hogenakkal falls’ which is on the river Cauvery near the TN-Karnataka border. We made good time in the morning and were there in under an hour, with a view of the hills in the distance and a hint of clouds at the top.
The last 20 minutes of the ride from Dharmapuri to the falls is quite something, especially if you’re doing it in the morning, the sun not yet up, and the ride is down the hills, a nice view, no civilization in sight till you get to Hogenakkal. Once there, we headed for the falls, the touts all there flocking up onto the hapless ‘tourists’ who are a shade lighter than the rest and don’t know shit about the local language. We decided to scour the locale first on foot, so we passed onto the swinging bridge (costs 5 bucks per person).
You get a good view of 2 sides of the river, the upstream with the small raging fall, and the downstream where it has mellowed down into a gentle stream through a valley and the villagers at the end washing their clothes.
If you do want to take a bath, you really need to take one here, they have a small place where the water falls with some force and it is railed off to prevent you from falling over; they do have changing rooms, even for women if they want to have a cool shower here, though all you get to see are pot bellied mountains sitting comfortably throughout the day! Do it early in the morning when there are almost no people, so that you get the place all to yourself, else you’ll have to squeeze in between the aforementioned mountains.
Once you cross over the bridge, you have to hike a bit over the rocks, but you get to stand in the continuous shower from the falls; trust me, stand there for a couple of minutes and the small droplets bouncing off the rocks across the river will get you fully drenched. Vikas tried his ‘Jack without Kate’ pose here, and can vouch for the precipitation!
A further 100 meters on and you have to cross a small fall, which they have provided railing for and charge another 10 bucks for!
So we took our shoes off, and made it to the other side, and onto the observation tower (2 bucks here) where you get to see the entire series of the falls on your right side, a breathtaking view.
On the left is the path that the coracles take, which has a few really small falls, and the current is quite gentle. Again, just when you get off the tower, venture a bit further down onto the rocks (they’ve put a small tape perimeter to mark the limit) and just stand there to enjoy the water droplets fall onto your face, heavenly!
We took a coracle from here, and since it was early, just the 2 of us and ‘tourists’, we paid 500 bucks for the ride after some haggling; its very much advisable to travel in a group (though the official rates should be 50 per head for a 1.5-2 hr ride, they usually charge about 900 for taking 5-6 people, haggle well and you can get a better deal still). These boats are quite nice, had earlier seen them at Hampi as well, circular, made out of bamboo barks, and covered in tar at the bottom, just hold on to the sides once you hit high current and do nothing else.
Captain Rangaswamy took us on the serene ride, we passed the small falls, but did not get ourselves wet under it. If you do want to, ask the boatman to stop it there for some time, and he’ll expertly make sure that each and every one gets his/her time under the fall.
I guess we were probably the very first for the day to be taking the ride, noone else on the river that we could see (the snap posted above was taken later in the day). Vikas tried his hand at steering the oar for some time, but only managed to send us into a death spiral, at which time I insisted he hand back the oar to the specialist.
After some time he takes it across river and here you disembark for a 15 minute walk through a small village and forest to get closer to the main falls. Here we were also offered canned beer by one of the village folks for 100 bucks, would be really nice to sip on a chilled one while on the boat ride, but I don't drink and Vikas had seen a sign prohibiting drinking there, so that was a pass. We had taken off our shoes and R’swamy was easily outpacing us even with the boat on his back! As Vikas can vouch, it was not that light a thing to carry.
Once you hit the river again, it’s a short ride to the point from where you get the closest look at the big falls.
Its quite magnificent, looking at the gentle current of the river upstream before it reaches the steep fall, noone could fathom that the sight could be so beautiful. Its almost like a funnel when it falls, converging from almost 3 sides at the main point, and I guess it’s the sheer volume of the falls and not the height that makes up for its grandeur.
Of course you have to take the snaps here, one where there’s a small tree jutting out at the edge; and if you’re as chicken-hearted as I am, you’d be holding to the bark and the rock next to it and leaning forward presenting a not so dignified a posture! (The place is a bit slippery, and is on the ledge, so you have to be careful not to slip on the wet rocks here) Hence, I'm posting a snap of Vikas who makes for a much better photo subject, and obviously a swimmer!
This is the place that the masseurs would be after you to take a massage, passed that and the fried fish as well as I’m a vegetarian. The ride around the other side is quite calm as the current does most of the work, R’swamy did give us his own version of the death spiral as well, which Vikas captured in a video with me almost shouting at the boatman to slow down, and because of the reason mentioned that video has been buried in the never to be found archives!
I guess if you ask him to the boatman would take you at a path closer to the falls where you’d find the current to be stronger and get a much closer view of the river.
Once the boat ride is over, there is pretty much nothing else to do, we decided to trek a bit downstream and explore the place. We did do that for 30 minutes, but the sun had come up by now, so we sat in the shade, had some peanuts, and then rested with our feet in the cold water, watching kids go shouting past us in the coracles.
The water here is deceptively quite deep, so be sure that if you do enter it, enter at a shallow place. Ah, right food, nothing much, there are a few south Indian places that will give you dosas, idlis and the rest, but don’t expect much. The TTDC guesthouse is right next to the place and is a good place if one wants to stay there overnight. If we had been in a bigger group the 2 of us would’ve ventured further out into the wilderness, but its really not too safe in a group of 2. We also were wondering whether to rent a couple of bicylces from the TTDC compound (50 bucks for the hour, 100 for 6, 150 for 12 if memory serves right), but again, the group of 2 and the sun deterred us. So we headed back to Dharmapuri on the bus, and further on, a neck breaking general bus to Chennai! Have to remember to book the deluxe bus from Chennai directly for next time.
Oh, and here's Cap'n Rangaswamy, AHRRGGGRRR -
